Computers and computer applications have become a way of life for the majority of society. Although most computers come pre-configured with some computer applications, most users must install and/or configure additional computer applications on their computer to tailor their computer for their particular needs. Such computer application installation and/or configuration can be as easy as a one step activation of an installation program. However, more complex computer applications require a user to provide installation decisions and/or configuration decisions to complete installation of the computer application. Such installation decisions and/or configuration decisions are not always easy to make. Some installation decisions and/or configuration decisions require knowledge of an installation parameter and/or a configuration parameter, e.g., parameters of a user's computer hardware, operating system parameters, other computer programs installed on the user's computer, etc. Without a user making the proper installation decision and/or configuration decision, an installed computer application may either not execute at all or alternately may not execute in the manner desired by the user.
FIGS. 1-5 show an example computer application that requires user input during installation and configuration. In particular, FIGS. 1-5 a sampling of the conventional configuration components for the Zimbra™ Collaboration Suite.
Before the installation of Zimbra™ even begins, Zimbra™ specifies that the disk partition be set as follows: The Mount Point/RAID Volume size for the /boot partition should be 100 MB, the Swap partition should be set to twice the size of the random access memory (“RAM”) on your machine, and the Root partition (/) should be set with the remaining disk space size. FIG. 1 shows such pre-installation configuration of disk partition can be performed within an operating system (OS), e.g., Red Hat, setup.
Moreover, the Zimbra™ installation verifies that the correct prerequisite packages are installed, e.g., MySQL. If the correct prerequisite packages are installed, the installation process installs the Zimbra™ Collaboration Suite on a server. Otherwise, the installation of the Zimbra™ Collaboration Suite process ends to allow the use to install the correct prerequisite packages.
Zimbra™ requires a user to manually configure the hostname in the OS with the fully qualified hosthame of the Zimbra™ server, e.g., mailhost.example.com. A user must further configure the OS with the Network Gateway and Primary Domain Name Server (DNS) addresses. FIG. 2 shows such pre-installation configuration of the hostname and FIG. 3 shows such pre-installation configuration of a network gateway and primary DNS.
A user must further turn off their firewall, disable the Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux), and disable Sendmail in order to run the Zimbra™ Collaboration Suite.
The Zimbra™ Collaboration Suite runs on the Fedora™, Core 4 operating system. When installing the Fedora™ software for the Zimbra™ Collaboration Suite, a user is instructed to accept the default setup answers, except for the following steps: The Mount Point/RAID Volume size for the /boot partition should be 100 MB, the Swap partition should be set to twice the size of the RAM on your machine, and the Root partition (/) should be set with the remaining disk space size. The Hostname must be manually configured with the hostname name [mailhost.example.com] of the Zimbra™ server. A user must manually configure the Gateway and Primary DNS addresses in Fedora. A user must turn off their firewall and disable the Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux). A use must disable Sendmail in order to run Fedora™.
The installation process checks to see if Sendmail, Postfix, and MySQL software are running. If any of these applications is running, you are asked to disable them. Disabling MySQL is optional but highly recommended. Sendmail and Postfix must be disabled for the Zimbra collaboration Suite to start correctly. Next, the installer checks to see that the prerequisite software is installed. If NPTL, sudo, libidn, cURL, fetchmail, GMP or compat-libstdc++—are not installed, the install process quits. Accordingly, a user must fix the problem and restart the installation.
During the installation of Zimbra™, a menu of options are displayed to a user, as shown in FIG. 4. Some menu options include: setting the LDAP mast host, setting the LDAP port, setting the LDAP password, creating a domain, option to create an admin user, option to create an admin password, option to set various ports, option to enable SNMP notifications, option to enable backups, etc. As can be seen from FIG. 4, a user is presented with 11 menu options to tailor the configuration of the Zimbra™ Collaboration Suite.
FIG. 4 shows a user selecting menu option 6. Menu option 6 from FIG. 4 opens additional options for a user, as shown in FIG. 5. Some of the menu options from FIG. 5 include whether to create an administrator user, whether to create an administrator password, what HTTP port to use for the web server, whether to activate spell checking, etc. As can be seen from FIG. 5, a user is presented with 20 menu options to tailor the zimbra-store of the Zimbra™ Collaboration Suite.
The description provided herein is an abbreviated list of configuration choices given to a user during the installation of the Zimbra™ Collaboration Suite. Thus, there are numerous points within an installation of the Zimbra™ Collaboration Suite where a user can make an incorrect choice that will prevent the application, or a portion of the functionality of the application from functioning properly.
If a user has a question with any portion of the installation, a user can attempt to look up an answer on the Internet. Knowledgebase assistance is widely available at numerous websites on the Internet. However, to find an answer to a particular installation question a user must know what keywords to use in a search field in order to obtain a helpful answer. A use could literally spend hours searching a particular installation question before finding a helpful answer to their installation and/or configuration question.
Alternately, a user can attempt to call some type of help line or use an instant messaging window to obtain help from a live assistance person. However, calling a help line typically results in a uses having to wait for a help person to answer the call, a user has to properly describe their problem, and a user must hope they get a help person that has the knowledge that they need and can convey it in the manner that will assist the user. Likewise, using an instant messaging window requires a user to properly describe their problem to be able to obtain a meaningful response from the live assistance person.
Thus, proper installation and configuration of a software suite, such as the Zimbra™ Collaboration Suite, can be a daunting and frustrating procedure for most users. Although assistance can be obtained through a telephone call and/or an Internet connection, obtaining such assistance can also be a daunting and frustrating procedure for most users.
Accordingly, the present teachings solve these and other problems of the prior art associated with installation and configuration of an application program.